I’m often recommending books to friends and thought I’d broaden my reach with this blog. My grandmother , who noted every book she read, was my inspiration to do the same. With my frequent travel habits I’ve decided it’s time to move my jottings from paper to the flexibility and weightlessness of a blog. If you are planning a purchase from Amazon, please support this site by using one of the links lower down on the left side of the page. Thank you!

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A Natural Curiosity: Margaret Drabble

One of my unspoken complaints when looking for a good book to read is that it seems impossible to find a good novel that reflects my own life in any way. I would like to find a story that I can read with pleasure and identify with the main characters, find something of myself in them, read the questions that I have about life and learn how others in similar situations answer those questions.

In this novel the main characters are three women in their 50s in 1980’s Britain, and I wonder if any women readers were able to identify with these characters. Not me. These women are comfortably sure of themselves and of where they belong, they seem ‘very English’ to me, complacent, most of their questions in life answered. So, not great literature, no really big issues raised, just every day lives of comfortably well-off professional older women.

Is it a good read? The large number of minor characters becomes difficult to follow, but there’s enough going on, enough to keep us wondering what’s going to happen next, with a little bit of mystery thrown in, to keep the reader occupied and interested. Good enough.